Change is needed in Vernon

There are many reasons why I believe change is needed in Vernon. This is just a small sampling of Mayor Vic Marotta’s not so popular achievements:

1. In November 2012, 87 percent of Vernon voters said "no" to raises, yet in December, Mayor Marotta acted improperly by giving out $66,000 of taxpayer money in bonuses to township employees.

2. The senior citizens were promised they would have affordable senior housing, yet the property sits empty with no construction in sight.

3. There was a breach of all employee Social Security numbers, which cost the taxpayers over $100,000 for Lifelock, yet this could have been accomplished for free by simply filing a police report, and registering the employees with all 3 credit reporting agencies.

4. In December 2013, Mayor Marotta once again, acted improperly by giving out $43,000 of taxpayer money in bonuses to township employees.

5. The file which contained documents outlining nearly $1,000,000 in uncollected fire official fines on Camp Sussex sits empty with no explanation.

6. Mayor Marotta is responsible for spreading false information about pictures of drug paraphernalia found at Camp Sussex. It was later discovered that those pictures were stock images that came from the Internet.

7. In 2014, Mayor Marotta gave the business administrator an unauthorized 20 percent pay increase.

Vernon cannot afford to continue down this reckless, self-serving path. Every conversation and meeting should not be about what’s good for the mayor. We need to focus on our community and everyone in it, not just the select few friends of Mayor Marotta.

It’s time to take back our town led by a successful businessman. This is why I support Harry Shortway for Mayor and urge you to consider his mayoral candidacy when you vote in the Nov. 3, 2015 election.

Jean Murphy
Vernon Township Councilwoman